


The World Is Your Oyster Now

by Ad_Absurdum



Series: Alternative Universes and Love Letters [4]
Category: Music RPF, Real Person Fiction, The Smiths
Genre: (well at least one), Alternate Universe, Assassins & Hitmen, F/M, M/M, bad relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 10:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15192689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ad_Absurdum/pseuds/Ad_Absurdum
Summary: Assassins and infatuations. Probably not a very good mix (and very unprofessional to boot), but sometimes there was no helping these things.





	The World Is Your Oyster Now

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Never happened. All slander and lies.
> 
> **A/N:** Wow, how many years has it been since the last story in this series? The funny thing is I actually wrote this fic (along with 3 or 4 other in the series) about 3 years ago. I just never came round to posting it. Well, I think the time for it is now, so here you are. I hope you still like The Smiths, that you still read Smiths-fics and that you'll like this little story as well. Yes, I do realise that's a lot of hoping, but - contrary to what the poet once said - wishful thinking is not a lost art.
> 
> This part was inspired by song No. 4: _Desperate Andy_ by The Cranberries. The title also comes from this song.

M. had a hard time pinpointing the start of his fascination. Well, obsession really if he wanted to be honest with himself. It was ridiculous, it was unprofessional, it was unfathomable. And yet, there it inexplicably was.

M. remembered when he first saw Andy. It was on the job, no less. Like he said - unprofessional.

M. has been hired to kill the right hand of a certain Big Fish in drug-dealing business. Not the Big Fish himself - he was somewhere in Costa Rica or Miami, happy to pull the strings from afar rather than sit in Manchester and complain about the constant rain like the rest of true Mancunians.

That was all right with M., he was happy to kill as many 'right hands' as he would be paid for and to wait patiently for the day when he'd get a commission to finish the Big Fish as well. Drug dealing always appeared to M. as the absolute low. Call him old-fashioned, but he preferred when the criminals had a healthy do-it-yourself approach. Or take-it-yourself, as the case might be.

Of course, the people who have hired M. to do the deed were not some sort of angels in disguise or even the 'good guys'. In fact they were a competing group of drug-dealers, but that was okay too - M. knew who they were, he could bide his time and wait for an opportunity and a commission to assassinate them as well. One by one. And wasn't that an enticing vision.

So he had accepted the job to get that 'right hand' out of the picture permanently and started to observe his target. It always paid off to be prepared in the end. Sure, you could skip this part and shoot your target on the street, at their home or even in a conveniently crowded shopping mall, but then you usually ended in gaol pretty quickly. M. saw it happen to at least a dozen of incompetent imbeciles who called themselves _professional_ assassins. Pathetic really.

The profession required patience, planning and brains, not a Neanderthal with a gun, who thought he'd get away with murder by running from the police in a stolen car. That's why M. was still alive and, more importantly, free.

So when he began his observation of the Big Fish (who, rather atypically for a money-loaded gangster, lived in an unassuming neighbourhood of lower middle class families), M. was forced to notice the neighbourhood as well. And he noticed one couple in particular. They lived next door to his target, both were in their 20's, both blond, but here the similarities ended.

M. took an almost instant dislike to the girl. She was loud, wore too much make-up and listened to the most revolting music imaginable. Visage and Chris De Burgh - M. didn't know which was worse.

The boy, on the other hand, was quiet and had a round face and soft features that made him look younger than he probably was. He smoked too much, but at least seemed to have better taste in music than his girlfriend. M. noticed the boy's unfortunate fondness for Neil Young and Rory Gallagher, but he also heard Japan and The Cookies being played. Usually when the girlfriend wasn't home.

And so, sitting in an abandoned flat in the house across the street from his target, M. got to know both his target and the couple pretty well. And those new listening devices were truly wonderful things.

M. adjusted his headphones and turned the volume down a little. His target was talking over the phone with his boss, judging by the contents of the conversation, and the boy and the girl were arguing again. Well, the girl was shouting. The boy just sat and stared at the floor.

Same old, same old. M. frowned, hearing the girl yelling how the boy - Andy - could never hold down a job, how all her friends could afford better clothes than her 'cos _their_ boyfriends made so much more money than Andy ever could and probably ever would.

And that she should've listened to her mother. Who never liked Andy anyway - that much M. already knew.

M. took off his headphones. So, Andy lost another job. He sighed; he knew Andy hated those menial jobs he always ended up with.

Still looking at their windows, M. saw the girl slap Andy in the face, grab her purse and slam the door on her way out of the flat.

M.'s fingers itched for his gun. It would only take five seconds for him to aim and shoot as she walked down the street towards a bus stop.

He exhaled slowly and cursed himself for his thoughts. So bloody unprofessional.

M. moved his eyes from the girl to the window of the couple's flat. Andy had lit a cigarette and lay down on the sofa. M. could hear the faint notes of a Japan record playing from the headphones around his neck.

M. shook his head - he never understood why people tortured themselves like this. Why did they stay together when it seemed like they hated each other? Or in this case, when the girl seemed to be interested only in how much money Andy brought home and otherwise treated him like a doormat. And why did Andy stay with her?

Was it sex?

M. curled his lip in disdain. Well, they shagged pretty regularly and pretty vigorously too. Apparently their arguments weren't in the way.

Ah, who cared anyway?

The sofa in the couple's flat faced the window and M. could look his fill at Andy lying there, his eyes closed and the cigarette smoke curling around his head like an otherworldly halo.

M. clenched his hands into fists, the stupid desire to touch Andy - to stroke his cheek and smooth out the worry wrinkles between his eyebrows - making itself known again. Ridiculous.

M. unclenched his fists, turned away from the window and resolutely started putting all his equipment away. It was four weeks since he started observing his target. Now he knew all he needed: what the target liked to eat, what newspapers he read, when he went to the toilet and when and where he liked to go out. It was time to complete his job. He'd make his move tomorrow.

M. took a long look around the room again. He left no traces of himself here. No sandwich wrappers, no fingerprints, not so much as a hair. It was as if he'd never been here.

M. smiled faintly and left.

As he predicted, the job went without a hitch. The police doomed the shooting an unfortunate accident - a stray bullet during a clay pigeon shooting. M. allowed himself a moment of satisfaction.

He collected his money - via a bank account, never in person - and was strolling down a street, enjoying the rare sun and wondering if he should perhaps go for a few days somewhere else, London maybe. And it was then that he spotted Andy. Walking down the same street, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and a yellow-bluish discolouration on his left cheekbone.

It could be from a fight, but M. didn't think so. He saw, though, the rings Andy's girlfriend wore on her right hand. Bruises guaranteed.

M. watched surreptitiously from his spot in front of a bookshop window, pretending he was checking the new titles, as Andy stopped in front of a music shop. He gazed at the inside through the display window then turned away, shoulders slumped, and soon disappeared around the street's corner.

M. walked the few steps to where Andy had stood. There, behind the glass, sat a bass guitar. Not new, but with Andy's luck with money, he could never afford it anyway.

M. sighed. Another familiar pattern. He recalled he sometimes saw Andy's friend during his observations. Johnny was his name, if he remembered correctly. He'd always bring a guitar, and sometimes also his girlfriend, and Andy's eyes would literally lit up at the sight of the instrument. And when Johnny let Andy play his guitar, Andy cradled it with such reverence and so gently as if it were his own baby.

Needless to say, Andy's girlfriend didn't like Johnny very much and his girlfriend even less, if that was possible.

M. gritted his teeth at the thought of the bruise on Andy's cheek. He'd had enough. He was going to pay Andy's girlfriend a little visit. He knew where she worked and he knew her way home. There were plenty of secluded spots along the way.

Oh, he wasn't going kill her, that wasn't necessary. No, he'd just... persuade her to leave Andy for good. Hers mainly. He'd do it gently or, if that wouldn't work, a little less gently. Whatever it took.

* * *

Two weeks later M. was walking down the same street. He timed it right - Andy was coming from the opposite direction, a vaguely vacant look on his pretty face.

M. frowned at himself, displeased that he noticed and appreciated, but he didn't dwell on the thought. There was something he needed to do.

Andy was two yards away. M. neatly sidestepped an old man shuffling along in front of him.

One yard. M. looked to his side.

Half a yard. He quickened his pace. Two steps. Contact.

Shoulders bumped, the books under M.'s arm fell to the ground, his other hand went out to steady Andy.

Andy looked up at him and the world stood still.

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry."

Both Andy and M. spoke at the same time.

Andy quickly picked up the scattered books (which M. carried for that very purpose).

"I'm really sorry," he said handing them to M. Their fingertips brushed. "Usually I'm not this clumsy."

Andy looked... lost, M. thought. He felt a momentary twitch of guilt. Maybe he shouldn't have scared Andy's girlfriend away after all. Then he remembered how their life looked like and all the guilt was gone.

"Are you all right?" Andy asked.

M. blinked. "Yes, quite. Thank you." He looked at the books quickly and then smiled ruefully. "I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going."

Andy grinned. "Well, no harm done."

M. found himself responding to that grin with a genuine smile of his own. They stood like that for an eternity of five seconds. Finally Andy shook his head. "Sorry, I'll just be on my way then. Sorry again."

"Yes, sorry. Right."

They sidestepped each other and parted.

M. cast a quick glance at Andy's retreating back, then he reached into his jacket and took out Andy's wallet. The skill of pickpocketing was very useful in M.'s profession.

He smiled at his treasure. Well, now I surely must return what I've just found. The rightful owner might get worried or something.


End file.
